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    Ancient egyptian legends
    Ancient egyptian legends
    Ancient egyptian legends
    Ebook158 pages1 hour

    Ancient egyptian legends

    By Margaret Alice Murray

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    Ancient Egiptian Legends is not a simple essay on the Egyptian mythology and religion, or on the mysteries and the secrets of a great ancient civilization, like many today can be found in bookstores. It's a real journey of initiation, supported by historical rigor and competence of its author, a historian and archaeologist who devoted all her life in search of the most authentic roots of human civilization on Earth and to the discovery of the most genuine Western Tradition and spirituality.
    Margaret Alice Murray was a famous and unforgotten Anglo-Indian egyptologist, archaeologist, anthropologist, historian, and folklorist. The first woman to be appointed as a lecturer in Archaeology in the United Kingdom, she worked at University College London (UCL) from 1898 to 1935, served as President of the Folklore Society from 1953 to 1955, and published widely over the course of her extraordinary career.
    Murray's work in Egyptology and Archaeology was widely acclaimed and earned her the moniker of “The Grand Old Woman of Egyptology”, although after her death many of her contributions to the field were overshadowed by those of Petrie.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherEdizioni Aurora Boreale
    Release dateOct 10, 2018
    ISBN9788898635443
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      Book preview

      Ancient egyptian legends - Margaret Alice Murray

      Τεληστήριον

      MARGARET ALICE MURRAY

      ANCIENT EGYPTIAN LEGENDS

      Edizioni Aurora Boreale

      Title: Ancient Egyptian legends

      Author: Margaret Alice Murray

      Series: Telestèrion

      With introduction of Nicola Bizzi

      Editing and illustrations by Nicola Bizzi

      ISBN for e-book version: 978-88-98635-44-3

      Edizioni Aurora Boreale

      © 2018 Edizioni Aurora Boreale

      Via del Fiordaliso 14 - 59100 Prato - Italia

      edizioniauroraboreale@gmail.com

      To my students, past and present,

      I dedicate this book.

      Margaret Alice Murray

      INTRODUCTION OF THE PUBLISHER

      I’m very proud to introduce to the readers of Telestèrion, an Aurora Boreale’s publishing series dedicated to exoteric and initiatic studies, one of the most important and amazing essays of Margaret Alice Murray, Ancient Egiptian Legends.

      This book was published for first time in London in January 1913 by John Murray, Albemarle Street W., in the series Wisdom of the Est, and successfully reprinted in March 1920.

      Ancient Egiptian Legends is not a simple essay on the Egyptian mythology and religion, or on the mysteries and the secrets of a great ancient civilization, like many today can be found in bookstores. It’s a real journey of initiation, supported by historical rigor and competence of its author, a historian and archaeologist who devoted all her life in search of the most authentic roots of human civilization on Earth and to the discovery of the most genuine Western Tradition and spirituality.

      Margaret Alice Murray was a famous and unforgotten Anglo-Indian egyptologist, archaeologist, anthropologist, historian, and folklorist. The first woman to be appointed as a lecturer in Archaeology in the United Kingdom, she worked at University College London (UCL) from 1898 to 1935, served as President of the Folklore Society from 1953 to 1955, and published widely over the course of her extraordinary career.

      Born to a wealthy middle-class English family in Calcutta, British India, on July 13 1863, Murray divided her youth between India, Britain, and Germany, training as both a nurse and a social worker. Moving to London, in 1894 she began studying Egyptology at UCL, developing a friendship with department head Flinders Petrie, who encouraged her early academic publications and appointed her Junior Professor in 1898. In 1902–03 she took part in Petrie’s excavations at Abydos, Egypt, there discovering the Osireion temple and the following season investigated the Saqqara cemetery, both of which established her reputation in Egyptology. Supplementing her UCL wage by giving public classes and lectures at the British Museum and Manchester Museum, it was at the latter in 1908 that she led the unwrapping of Khnum-nakht, one of the mummies recovered from the Tomb of the Two Brothers – the first time that a woman had publicly unwrapped a mummy. Recognising that British Egyptomania reflected the existence of a widespread public interest in Ancient Egypt, Murray wrote several books on Egyptology targeted at a general audience.

      Murray also became closely involved in the first-wave feminist movement, joining the Women’s Social and Political Union and devoting much time to improving women’s status at UCL.

      Unable to return to Egypt due to the First World War, she focused her research on the witch-cult hypothesis, the theory that the witch trials of Early Modern Christendom were an attempt to extinguish a surviving pre-Christian, pagan religion devoted to a Horned God. Although later academically discredited, the theory gained widespread attention and proved a significant influence on the emerging new religious movement of Wicca.

      From 1921 to 1931 Murray undertook excavations of prehistoric sites on Malta and Menorca and developed her interest in folkloristics. Awarded an honorary doctorate in 1927, she was appointed assistant professor in 1928 and retired from UCL in 1935. That year she visited Palestine to aid Petrie’s excavation of Tall al-Ajjul and in 1937 she led a small excavation at Petra in Jordan. Taking on the presidency of the Folklore Society in later life, she lectured at such institutions as the University of Cambridge and City Literary Institute, and continued to publish in an independent capacity until her death.

      In May 1957, Murray had championed the archaeologist Thomas Charles Lethbridge’s controversial claims that he had discovered three pre-Christian chalk hill figures on Wandlebury Hill in the Gog Magog Hills, Cambridgeshire. Privately she expressed concern about the reality of the figures. Lethbridge subsequently authored a book championing her witch-cult theory in which he sought the cult’s origins in pre-Christian culture.

      In 1960, she donated her collection of papers – including correspondences with a wide range of individuals across the country – to the Folklore Society Archive, where it is now known as the Murray Collection.

      On researching the history of UCL’s Egyptology department, the historian Rosalind M. Janssen stated that Murray was «remembered with gratitude and immense affection by all her former students. A wise and witty teacher, two generations of Egyptologists have forever been in her debt». Alongside teaching them, Murray was known to socialise with her UCL students outside of class hours.

      Jacqueline Simpson noted that the publication of the Murray thesis in the Encyclopædia Britannica made it accessible to «journalists, film-makers popular novelists and thriller writers», who adopted it enthusiastically. Surely it influenced the work of Aldous Huxley and Robert Graves, and it was also an influence on the American horror author Howard Phillips Lovecraft, who cited the Murray’s essay The Witch-Cult in Western Europe in his writings about the fictional cult of Cthulhu.

      The author Sylvia Townsend Warner cited Murray’s work on the witch-cult as an influence on her 1926 novel Lolly Willowes, and sent a copy of her book to Murray in appreciation, with the two meeting for lunch shortly after. There was nevertheless some difference in their depictions of the witch-cult; whereas Murray had depicted an organised pre-Christian cult, Warner depicted a vague family tra-dition that was explicitly Satanic. In 1927, Warner lectured on the subject of witchcraft, exhibiting a strong influence from Murray’s work. Analysing the relationship between Murray and Warner, the English literature scholar Mimi Winick characterised both as be-ing «engaged in imagining new possibilities for women in modernity».

      The archaeologist Ralph Merrifield, who knew Murray through the Folklore Society, described her as a «diminutive and kindly scholar, who radiated intelligence and strength of character into extreme old age». The historian Hilda Roderick Ellis Davidson, who also knew Murray through the Society, noted that at their meetings «she would sit near the front, a bent and seemingly guileless old lady dozing peacefully, and then in the middle of a discussion would suddenly intervene with a relevant and penetrating comment which showed that she had missed not one word of the argument». Davidson also described her as being «not at all assertive ... [she] never thrust her ideas on anyone. She behaved in fact rather like someone who was a fully convinced member of some unusual religious sect, or perhaps, of the Freemasons, but never on any account got into arguments about it in public».

      The later folklorist Juliette Wood noted that many members of the Folklore Society «remember her fondly», adding that Murray had been «especially keen to encourage younger researchers, even those who disagreed with her ideas».

      One of Murray’s friends in the Folklore Society, the anthropologist in the field of comparative religion Edwin Oliver James, described her as a «mine of information and a perpetual inspiration ever ready to impart her vast and varied stores of specialised knowledge without reserve, or, be it said, much if any regard for the generally accepted opinions and conclusions of the experts!». And the archaeologist Glyn Daniel observed that Murray remained mentally alert into her old age, commenting that «her vigour and forthrightness and ruthless energy never deserted her».

      Murray never married, instead devoting her life to her work, and for this reason, Ronald Hutton drew comparisons between her and two other prominent female British scholars of the period, Jane Harrison and Jessie Weston. Murray’s biographer Kathleen L. Sheppard stated that she was deeply committed to public outreach, particularly when it came to Egyptology, and that as such she «wanted to change the means by which the public obtained knowledge about Egypt’s history: she wished to throw open the doors to the scientific laboratory and invite the public in».

      She considered travel to be one of her favourite activities, although due to restraints on her time and finances she was unable to do this regularly; her salary remained small and the revenue from her books was meagre.

      Murray’s work in Egyptology and Archaeology was widely acclaimed and earned her the moniker of The Grand Old Woman of Egyptology, although after her death many of her contributions to the field were overshadowed by those of Petrie.

      To mark her hundredth birthday, on 13

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